Robert Augustus Masters is an integral psychotherapist and spiritual teacher whose work emphasizes physical embodiment and greater relational maturity. With Sounds True, he has published the book To Be a Man: A Guide to True Masculine Power. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Robert and Tami Simon talk about the deep shame that men often experience in a society that encourages them to “man up” and ignore their emotions. They also speak on developing a healthier approach to anger, as well as coming to a new understanding of masculine sexuality. Finally, they discuss Robert’s interpretation of what women truly need from modern men. (68 minutes)

Other information at the wiki site includes testimonials from Master’s high-ranking inner circle which document Scientology-style “disconnection” (barring members from communicating with extended family outside the cult for years at a time), the practice of “mobbing,”and a challenge his recently published apology claiming that “overcome with remorse, he disbanded” the cult, when in fact the cultists left him; his claim that he made amends and wrote individual letters of apology to everyone is also challenged (only 20% of the members received letters, and much as with Cohen’s recent statement, most members rejected the apology as being self-serving). Interestingly, the wiki site dates Masters’ online apology at 2013. The Internet Wayback machine snapshots do not show it on his website until February 2015, and I know that after first reading it this past winter I returned to his site in subsequent months to find it taken down; it seems that Masters places it up and takes it down on an irregular basis. The spiritual wiki site also incorrectly reports that Ken Wilber rescinded his support of Masters in 2014; this seems unlikely--perhaps, as with Gafni, Wilber temporarily tested the wind--but Wilber still clearly supports him on facebook as of 5/14/15 without reserve.

Repeated posts of this material have failed, and the hyperlink is always broken even when the post goes through and is approved.I hope this is an issue with blogger, or my ineptness, and not the moderator's blocking or editing.

The URL for pasting is: de.spiritualwiki.org/Wiki/RobertAugustusMasters

Here is the material that did not post previously, copied from the wiki site, a sample of details regarding Masters' ten years as a cult guru:

♦ Not openly polyamorous, yet unilaterally polygamous, RAM did not permit his wife and two other concurrent partners (mothers of his children) to have any other intimate experiences, unless he was there, whereas he also had sex with a few other women in his community. (supposedly on behalf of their “spiritual growth.")♦ RAM groomed a teenager preparing her to be sexually initiated by him (on behalf of her “spiritual growth”)♦ RAM encouraged members of Xanthyros to cheat by filing for welfare, which resulted in a simultaneous raid on three of the community houses by the Welfare Agency of the province..♦ RAM threw his wife Gail down the stairs, forcibly and repeatedly banged his front man Philip's head on the floor while sitting over him, and banged Jean's head against the wall which resulted in prolonged headaches. In the middle of a group, he farted in kobally's face. He forced Nancy's son at age 10 to wear a diaper for three weeks in front of his peers, and the adults. He spit in more than a dozen people's faces, both men and women.♦ RAM expected sooner than later that each joining member would give over their life savings to him. Many did, given the very forceful group pressure. RAM failed to return the savings obtained via group pressure.♦ RAM extensively meddled with set existing relationships. Eventually he separated, physically and emotionally, each of the 20-30 (married) couples that joined the Xanthyros community as well as children from their parents--ostensibly on behalf of their spiritual growth. Only one out of ~ 25 separate couples succeeded to reunite afterward. ♦ As a way to manipulate the group dynamic in his direction, RAM constantly encouraged psychological mobbing and physical bullying.♦ Survivors of abuse, his two former wives and two life partners want NOTHING to do with RAM. Only one of them has to have contact with RAM because of addiction issues of their child.♦ RAM has shown zero remorse for the fate of the two children whose mothers he had coerced to give them up for adoption.♦ Two brothers, children during the Xanthyros community days, approached RAM for support for their recovery from years of his abuse. He rejected them with, "Turn the shit into compost." Consequently, they sued him for physical, sexual, emotional, and psychological abuse. To avoid a public upheaval that could damage his newly styled image and career, he settled out of court, financially.♦ The three mothers of RAM's five children claim that he abandoned his financial obligations toward his children.♦ RAM avoided to voluntarily apologize and subsequently come clean with his former cult members. As a result, 70-80 people (99% of all the adult and children survivors of RAM's abuse), except for one adult, broke ties with RAM. None of the former cult members endorses his work as "relationship expert."♦ Upon having been informed about RAM's unredeemed great harm committed as a cult leader, his loyalty-bonded advocates in his 3rd round took note, yet stayed put. Namely: Bernhard Guenther, Jeff Brown, Tami Simon, Ken Wilber

Last point. If the information about Masters’ past reaches a critical mass, I think the Integral drama will unfold predictably: this is all in Master’s past, he’s reformed, it’s irrelevant, the good he is doing outweighs harm he caused, his own past provided the insight to healing that he can now teach, the critics are “mean green” and “postmodern” and “first tier” inquisitionists incapable of a complex view of the situation (inquisitionists asking questions such as: has Masters truly made reparations with those harmed, was the latebreaking three paragraphs of apology on his website only extorted by years of legal threats, is the posted explanation/apology morally sufficient to the harm done, to what extent was this past covered up by the Wilberite marketing machine, is the “multiperspectival second tier” rhetoric once again being used to place asymmetric powerholders beyond accountability, etc.).

I don’t think it’s an accident that--once again--Integral’s latest wisdom teacher is someone whose writing seems wise at first glance, but whose past includes a more than decade-long stint as an abusive, narcissistic guru. Corboy at the Rick Ross forum suggests that there is a kind of repetition compulsion in Integral: a “social ritual” that consists in constantly bringing forward teachers with records of abuse in order to generate yet another ritual drama of scandal and vociferous defense. There is a rich discussion of this on the cult forum site on the Andrew Cohen thread. Individual posts can’t be linked directly, but I would strongly recommend going to the link below and searching for corboy’s post dated January 14, 2012, “Is Wilberian Integralism a Ritualized Drama?” There is every indication that scandalous abuse, leading to the vociferous defense of the new guru against the “undeveloped” critics, functions as a kind of exciting addiction in the Integral community.